Owned

Worry ruined the only black stilettos I own. Worry knows I hate my legs. How I’m flatfooted and ordinary. Thinks I look better in boots. Worry claws at the red freshly painted door, tore up the Crate and Barrel. Worry doesn’t care: about cortisol about twelvehour desklunches, about the boss that hired me to argue. Worry barks until its fed. Worry worries I don’t give enough. That even sleep is lazy. That I will be fat never full. Worry hungers. Begs for half my meal. Drools at the smell of blood: steak, bacon, thighs. Worry whimpers. Needs to be walked. Wants the neighborhood to see. Worry pisses on every flower. Knows some name it allergy. I told Worry I bought a cage. Worry barked so loud the neighbors heard. Worry hasn’t had its shots. Worry: never neutered. Wants to breed. Wants to get on everything. Always says look how fast I family. Look how many rooms I live in now.

Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Next nominee. BOAT/BURNED, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2019. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: DIAGRAM, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, Muzzle, PANK and more. Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is also the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). Kelly was a 2016 Fellow for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. She is the founder of FeministWrites, a creative collective that connects and champions feminist voices. She lives in Los Angeles. For more please visit www.kellygracethomas.com